Four weeks after surgery and I’ve begun to make friends with the new shoulder. It kinda feels like what it is at this stage – a bunch of bones held tightly together by a hamstring. It’s not the funnest and most comfortable of feelings, especially as you try to extend its range of movement but according to the doc and physio the shoulder will continue to improve over the next two-three months after which what you’ve got is pretty well what you’ll have for the rest of your life. Other than keeping on top of rehab I try not to think about it too much, though I can’t help but marvel at how well my other shoulder works!

Three weeks since the AC Joint reconstruction surgery. While things are continuing to improve, I can feel some frustration creeping in. It’s important to keep it in check though as now that I’ve started to feel and move better there’s the risk of doing something stupid and screwing things up.

It’s been two weeks since the surgery on my left shoulder so thought it was about time to post an update.

The first few days after the surgery were fairly ordinary as you’d kinda expect – a good reminder of the peculiar nature of intense discomfort, even including its distinct smell. Some opiate based pain relief helped keep the party going once the hospital drugs wore off. Thankfully each day brought with it slight improvements in movement, which seemed pretty significant to me.

It’s 8.30am Friday morning and I’m walking along hospital passageways en route to the operating theater. The blue surgical gown set off nicely by my Five Ten Freeride sneakers. If you’re getting sliced and diced you might as well do it in MTB style hey!

With the severity of the AC joint injury from Sunday’s crash, combined with it being on my dominant side and my work involving lifting, it was a pretty straightforward decision to undergo surgery ASAP. The plan was to reconstruct the AC joint using a hamstring taken from my leg, which practically involves drilling holes through the various shoulder bones and zip tie’ing the whole shebang together with the borrowed tendon.

Before I knew it I was waking up in post op, super groggy with a comfortably numb left shoulder and arm that felt more like a leg of lamb swinging in the breeze off a piece of wire versus part of my body.

Turns out today was a fine day to eat MTB shit. It’s been a long time since I’ve rag doll’d off a bike at speed, and I can tell ya, at 48 years old, it gets your attention real fast that’s for sure! TBH not really sure what happened — given the snapped and bent spoke, probably a branch through the front wheel — but whatever did, unlike most MTB crashes I’ve had, it came outta nowhere.